Spartan Citizen

Hello everyone,

I am trying to book two one-way awards around for November this year from HKG to DAD on KA using Avios. I have spoken to the US call center (interesting experience BTW, only 33 minutes hold time), which confirmed that award space is indeed available (4500 Avios pP) but then told me they had "computer problems" (something about problems with the Dragonair website) and were unable to continue with the booking.

Later on (closer to 5 PM PDT) the estimated hold time was over 1 hour, so I called the EC Azerbaijan number (call center in India with a UK landline number), and they told me the same.

Then I tried the German call center in Bremen right after they opened up (midnight PDT), but again the same problem.

When trying to search for the award myself online I always get a weird error as well (jumps right back to search as if I entered nothing). Other routes work fine (e.g. HKG to HAN), but HKG to DAD seems to be consistently broken (worked fine a couple weeks back though). I'm not sure if my website experience is at all related to their "computer problems".

Does anyone else experience anything similar? Any suggestions on the next step? I'll try calling Azerbaijan again later tonight..

Thanks!

Spartan Citizen

Update:

Called the Azerbaijan number again and after 30 minutes our ticket was issued. The agent said something about the system being down and he had to go to another system to calculate the Avios points needed, but it all worked out. Paid one way fare would have been at least $450 per person. So 4500 Avios and $46 in fees make a good cpm value here :-)

KARFA

Thanks for posting. I happened to be looking at the same route on KA recently and had the same issues on ba.com as well. Good to know that at least you can book it over the phone.

Spartan Citizen

Oh btw, the phone booking fees were waived, because I let him know that the ba.com website doesn't recognize DAD as a destination at all. After a quick hold the fees were waived. No problem at all.

BlackBerryAddict

Had the same experiece - and booked it over the phone in the UK. Strangely, MMB now says I'm flyingfrom 'Null' to HKG, although the android app does recognise the airport.

patmcpsu

This post is about my attempted Avios redemption to fly from DAD to NRT, but it can apply to any Avios redemption from DAD to anywhere other than HKG that isn't serviced by KA.

The only practical way of booking with with Avios is to use KA for DAD-HKG and then CX or JAL for HKG-NRT. However, the phone rep told me that it required an absurd number of Avios because I had to use their "multi-carrier" chart:
British Airways: Avios costs for multi-carrier Reward Flights

Using the standard award chart, DAD-HKG-NRT would cost 14,500 Avios per person. However, using the multi-carrier chart, it required 35,000 Avios per person.

I tried to persuade the rep that the KA/CX belong to the same company and that there were no single-carrier alternatives. They firmly declined and told me that I could break the journey into two separate single-carrier reservations, but that would involve substantial risk and inconvenience.

I politely ended the call and tried again a few hours later. The 2nd rep either didn't know the multi-carrier policy, or knew that it was unreasonable, because they never even mentioned it and priced each leg of the journey using the standard chart. ^

Moral of the story: you'll have better luck finding a helpful rep than converting an unhelpful rep.

Swiss Tony

Rightly or wrongly, those are the rules. I can't see what your problem is. A bit like going into a shop and refusing to buy something because the right price is being charged, then going back an hour later, getting someone to sell something at the wrong price & feeling pleased.

Also, whether you'll see that rep as being 'helpful' if BA clock you've been sold a ticket at the wrong price & come after you for the difference is open to debate. (I can't imagine BA sell that many redemptions from DAD-NRT...)